Friday, May 12, 2017

"If you're technically better, you can compensate for being perhaps physically weaker," said Andrea Gomez, the top scorer of a girl's soccer team in Spain that won a boy's league.

In Spain, women's soccer remains a sideshow. Despite their first Women's World Cup appearance in 2015, the top women's league did not sign its first major corporate sponsorship deal until las summer, three decades after the league began. The country's most successful club, Real Madrid, does not field a women's squad.

We have a long way to topple the gender sports hierarchy, including in the United States.

The boys Gómez left in her wake, though, were not the first ones forced to retrieve one of her shots from their net. Gómez, 13, and her teammates had been confounding boys all season, playing so well that their girls’ team recently won a junior regional league in Spain over 13 boys’ teams.

“I always try to show that soccer isn’t just for boys,” Gómez said. “If you’re technically better, you can compensate for being perhaps physically weaker.”

In the United States and a handfulofothercountries, it is not uncommon for women to upstage their male counterparts when it comes to soccer success. But in Spain, women’s soccer, despite the country’s first Women’s World Cup appearance in 2015, remains a sideshow. Spain’s top women’s league did not sign its first major corporate sponsorship deal until last summer — three decades after the league began — and the country’s most successful club, Real Madrid, does not field a women’s squad.